The World Health Organization (WHO) considers medical oxygen necessary to treat hypoxemia and pneumonia and includes it on the Model List of Essential Medicines and List of Essential Medicines for Children. Oxygen is also needed for other non-respiratory conditions and during surgeries and childbirth.

Oxygen therapy is vital for treating severe covid-19 and numerous other health conditions. However, this fundamental treatment became scarce when needed the most for the health care systems worldwide, resulting in millions of deaths globally.

The pandemic has magnified the lack of available oxygen. With healthcare systems and supply chains under tremendous added strain, some countries have found it challenging to supply oxygen for public and private health facilities. Healthcare workers face an enormous moral burden as they have to make tragic choices about who gets oxygen due to the lack of available treatment. The demand for oxygen for patients with COVID-19 certainly competes with the need for non-covid patients.

Healthcare systems worldwide are under tremendous pressure to provide equitable distribution of medical oxygen to their patients. Therefore, It is wise and economically sound to invest in oxygen concentrators to increase the availability of high-quality oxygen therapy in low-resource settings. These practical solutions will strengthen health systems’ ability to protect and promote the health and wellbeing of the patients in need.

SentriO™ is an innovative oxygen concentrator manufactured in the USA. It is a proven solution that ensures maximum oxygen therapy for patients needing one in these challenging times. As many die daily and many more become infected with COVID-19 each day, this urgently needed solution can protect countless lives and help healthcare systems reduce their moral and economic burden of providing the proper care for their patients.

Compared to a ventilator and high flow nasal cannula, which uses 60 LPM (liters per minute) of oxygen, the SentriO™ Mask system uses only 10 LPM. It saves around 70-80% of the oxygen needed supply. Even for regular patients on an ordinary ward, a reduction of about 25-30% oxygen use is made possible by switching to SentriO.

This device will significantly benefit the patients and allow the healthcare system to save healthcare costs. In a low-resource setting, it increases the availability, management, and quality of oxygen therapy available.